Asus 1201n very slow on internet browsing and certain tasks

[LuisG]

Hi,

I am new to the forum but hope I can get some guidance here.
I have an Asus eee pc 1201n. Originally it came installed with Win 7 x32 and it ran quite ok.

I have had a load of issues with it and it went back to Asus 3 times for diverse repairs. Since then, I have never been able to get it running normally again.

It is painfully slow browsing, especially on pages with loads of ads and I get messages of pages running long scripts all the time. Anything with flash running seems to load the cpu up to max straight away.

I have re-installed Windows several times and even after fresh installs I still get poor performance. I even tried browsing with the anti-virus turned off and there is no discernible difference in performance.

I had originally installed all the drivers from the Asus website but more recently in a bid to solve the problem have taken newer drivers for the NVidia ion graphics card. None of this has solved the problem.

Otherwise the computer is stable, takes normal time to load and in local tasks it is responsive. Having said that, it does not like running heavy graphics and has issues running the Windows Experience Index, normally crashing during the graphics performance check stages.

Could someone give me some guidance on how to troubleshoot the root of the problem as I have exhausted all my knowledge?

Thanks for reading my post.

 

[LuisG]

I would be very grateful if anyone helped me with this issue?

 

[torchwood]

Hi Luis,

My first thoughts get rid of AVG, use thier removal tool, get MSE.
Have you tried with either Firefox or google as your browser, I use Firefox.
There should not be scripts running when you open IE,
suggest you download/run Malwarebytes free
(uncheck 30day trial, but enable root kit detection in the dashboard settings)

The comment you made, re crashing is of more concern, its implying a graphics card impending failure

Otherwise the computer is stable, takes normal time to load and in local tasks it is responsive. Having said that, it does not like running heavy graphics and has issues running the Windows Experience Index, normally crashing during the graphics performance check stages.

Roy

 

[LuisG]

Hi Roy,

Many thanks for your input.

I have replaced AVG with MSE and ran Malwarebytes and have found 9 threats. These were removed and it is running better.

I had run Chrome and Firefox before and there was no difference in speed and occasionally they were even slower than IE in the same page.

Thank you for this as is mos definitely had an impact.

What still gets to me is that in any forum with adverts, the page loading takes forever to the point that I cannot scroll or even highlight text. On IE, even this forum is taking some good 15 seconds to fully load and process the page. I now notice this to be a lot faster in Chrome so I am guessing there are some scripts running in the background.

I am going to try to run the Windows Experience Index and see if it is still crashing and post back.

 

[LuisG]

I have now successfully completed the Windows Experience Index without any issues. SUCCESS!!

I can't believe how much AVG was affecting it...

I had run Malwarebytes previously and had found no threats so the only common thing was AVG...

With regards to how long it is taking to load and process pages (I am still getting "long running script" messages), is there something I can do about it? It worries me because I know someone else with the exact same machine and Windows install and does not suffer from the same.

As this netbook uses the NVIDIA ION chip, which if I understand correctly shares the main processor for the graphics as well, I am still not sure that my drivers/config are correct. How can I check for this?

 

[LuisG]

Just for some additional detail, I have just tried to access a page with some embedded advert video and other animations. This is taking close to 1 min before you can even scroll on IE (on Chrome it takes over 30secs).

Once I load this page up on IE and with nothing else happening on the background, my CPU is loading between 50 and 65% and iexplore.exe process has climbed up to over 400mb... There is only 1 page open. I have seen similar behaviour on other websites...

Is this normal??

 

[torchwood]

Hi Luis,

How much RAM, i looked at the specs and they said could be 1 or 2.

You really need 2GB, if its only 1 then i suggest you buy a 2GB card.

Download and run CPUID it will tell you what TYPE of ram i suspect the older ddr2.

Roy

 

[torchwood]

browser

Going back to the long running script issue.

If you change to Firefox, there is an Addon called Noscript, might improve loading times.

Note if you change to FF,
goto Programs/features>> turn features on/off >> uncheck IE11.

If you want to go further, look at Blackvipers site to turn off non-essential progs.
DO NOT use the barebones settings.

Roy

 

[LuisG]

Hi Luis,

How much RAM, i looked at the specs and they said could be 1 or 2.

You really need 2GB, if its only 1 then i suggest you buy a 2GB card.

Download and run CPUID it will tell you what TYPE of ram i suspect the older ddr2.

Roy

Hi,

I had upgraded quite some time ago to 4Gb (the max it will take). I am pretty sure it is DDR2 and win 32 will only make use of 3.25gb anyway.

In essence, I don't think RAM is an issue.

 

[LuisG]

Just for some additional detail, I have just tried to access a page with some embedded advert video and other animations. This is taking close to 1 min before you can even scroll on IE (on Chrome it takes over 30secs).

Once I load this page up on IE and with nothing else happening on the background, my CPU is loading between 50 and 65% and iexplore.exe process has climbed up to over 400mb... There is only 1 page open. I have seen similar behaviour on other websites...

Is this normal??

Hi Roy,

Thanks for all the input regarding FF and BlackViper. I had done some tuning of services loaded at startup acc. to BlackViper and I think I am now between 850 and 950mb on load.

Even though I have FF installed, I still see a similar behaviour (see quote) to some degree on IE, Chrome and FF. It is definitely worse on IE but what I would like to understand is why is it that opening certain pages loads the process browser process some 400mb... This is particularly the case when the page has animated adverts or automatic video running.
I think it is because it is creating such a massive process that it throws errors such as long-script running or page has stopped responding. If I wait a long time, it eventually works.

Any ideas how I could get to the bottom of this?

P.S.- Sorry for the delay on the reply but I have been busy with some car problems...

 

[LuisG]

I have just restarted my pc and loaded one single page on one single tab of IE and let it sit for 1/2hr. After this time, the iexplore.exe process was consuming 1.6gb of ram and growing.
This was also going on when opening IE without add-ons.

I then closed it down and loaded the exact same page on Chrome and it consumed about 200mb and stopped.

How do I fix this??... Everywhere I look everyone seems to point at add-ons and extensions as a problem, but it clearly is not my case. Given that IE is integrated into Windows and Explorer in particular, would I have a problem there...?

 

[LuisG]

I have just restarted my pc and loaded one single page on one single tab of IE and let it sit for 1/2hr. After this time, the iexplore.exe process was consuming 1.6gb of ram and growing.
This was also going on when opening IE without add-ons.

I then closed it down and loaded the exact same page on Chrome and it consumed about 200mb and stopped.

How do I fix this??... Everywhere I look everyone seems to point at add-ons and extensions as a problem, but it clearly is not my case. Given that IE is integrated into Windows and Explorer in particular, would I have a problem there...?

UPDATE:

I have now tried the exact same page loading on another Win 7 pc on IE 11. The iexplore.exe process took about 200mb of memory, similar to Chrome and then stopped, not like on my laptop climbing up to 1.6gb over 1/2hr.

I am pretty sure there is something wrong with my laptop... Any ideas on how to diagnose this?